I have fallen right back into one of my old habits during the last couple of days of my vacation. Naturally, I am such a night person. Especially when it comes to reading, writing and blogging. I am so much more productive after 10:30 or 11 o’clock in the evening. However, during the week (when I am actually working, that is) and I am waking up at 5:45 in the morning, I just cannot stay up until 1 in the morning. So sad for me 😦

Back to my day… I have been really wanting to bake oatmeal cookies lately. I decided to celebrate my first run in about two months by baking a couple of batches of homemade cookies. Yum. (Have I mentioned that I love vacation so much!?)

I am very happy that I actually looked in a few different places for an oatmeal cookie recipe. The recipe I usually use calls for TWO sticks of butter and between 1 1/2 – 2 cups of sugar for the batter. Today I took a chance and looked at Bittman’s How To Cook Everything. There was a recipe for oatmeal cookies! It called for one stick of butter and only 1/2 a cup of white sugar (I used organic sugar which is not actually white) and 1/2 cup of brown sugar.

Before I started mixing, I gathered all of my ingredients:

I creamed together the sugars and the butter… and then added two eggs, one at a time:

I gathered all of the dry ingredients and mixed them together in a small bowl:

Gradually I mixed the dry ingredients and the 1/2 cup of milk together with the creamed egg, butter and sugars:

The recipe said to mix the ingredients together by hand, no Kitchen Aid to be used once you have creamed the first few ingredients together. I love mixing with a wooden spoon:

The batter came together so nicely. Then I added some chocolate chips and peanut butter chips:

My sister soon came down to the kitchen to see what I was up to. She agreed that the batter was pretty awesome….

The cookies were perfectly uniform, thanks to my friend and blog reader Marilyn. A couple of years ago she bought me the most perfect cookie scoop from Crate & Barrel and I love it! My cookies looked almost professional and I was sort of proud of them. 🙂

Into the oven:

Out of the oven:

My sister and I both tried a cookie. I loved the size of them. They were on the ‘small’ side… One would fit in the palm of your hand:

For the second batch and the third, I smushed the cookies down just a tad so they were not quite so dome like 🙂 They taste amazingly good. Very light and fluffy.

Tonight I picked my mom up from the airport. She has just returned home from a two week trip out to the west coast where she was visiting our family friends out in Oregon. We spent the evening catching up and looking at some of her amazing photographs from the trip.

I made us both a salad:

I whipped up a great salad dressing. The next time I am going to try and jot down a few measurements. Right now I can just tell you (sort of) what goes into the mixture. Sesame oil, apple cider vinegar a pinch of sugar and smidgen of salt. Whisk everything together. Drizzle on salad. Shake everything together if you have a lid for your salad container 🙂

After the salad I toasted a tortilla with a palmful of cheddar cheese and snacked on that. It was all so good.

Well, I’m wrapping up from a busy day. Fall is in the air my friends, the temps have cooled down and I feel like it might be a great night to catch up on some sleep. See you tomorrow!